uw story

My ode to high fidelity. This is an essay about making peace with myself, my daemons, and my experiences in love. I write this with an intention. My intention is to inspire others and inspire myself to recognize and own the wonder and mystery that is yourself. Recently breaking up with my boyfriend of the last nine months have made me analyze myself from an objective standpoint, and raised the question as to how did I get here? Have the choices I've made in relationships reflected who I really am and inspired my goals/dreams? There are four men I have loved in my life. From most recent to first the top four contenders are...Chris, John, Brian, and Joey. These are some of the most ordinary names to describe some of the most extraordinary men I've known and loved. When I was 21 I met Joey, at a bar. We walked home and fell asleep by Teeney Park after talking until the sun rose, where for the rest of my life I have associated him and that park together. He was shorter than me. I stand 5'9" and he is 5'7". I hated that. We dated long distance for a year when I moved up north while he stayed in Madison. We seen each other for weekend getaways and I fell in love with his gentile, playful, and cynical spirit and sense of humor, especially with me. He rented us an apartment on Willy St and we moved in together. He was a heroin addict. I was an alcoholic. And annoyingly neieve. To describe Joey in a small essay is like trying to describe a tornado. He was a whirlwind of destruction but the calm before and after the storm was and still is so beautiful, i was captivated. We lived together for a little over a year and when I remember him, I remember how he made me feel. I felt loved. I felt protected. I felt as though he was my heart in human form and it was my job to nourish that and love him. My memories of him do not consist of nod off, overdoses, fighting, financial struggles. My brain floods with memories of laughter, witty banter, spending afternoons doing scratch off's and playing checkers. Having his support in any and every endouvour of the flavor of week I wanted. I think of him bringing me to & home from work every day when I didn't have a car. I think of our angry upstairs neighbor name Kevin and how we used Kevin as a curse word in our house. When we stubbed a toe or one of us was irritated, instead of "fuck" it was always "Kevin!!" and how he would ask us why he heard his name being screamed often. We simply laughed and said he must be hearing us wrong. After failed attempts at re-hab and traveling to Utah and CO..he finally became sober. He was different. I was different. I was angry at him. He was making peace with himself. I met him at our door with a beer upon his arrival from re-hab. That's one of my biggest regrets of my life. We went to Minneapolis and we were different. I didn't like him. He flirted with other women and when he talked with me he starred at himself in a mirror behind me the whole time. We broke up. For months, I was sick. I called in to work for a week straight. I slept with a bucket by my bed because I cried so hard I would throw up nightly. I drank to oblivion. I spent hundreds of dollars of beer at the Willy st BP and became best friends with the owner there. He was from India and we would drink PBR while watching you-tube yoga videos of famous yogi instructors. To the outsider perspective, this may seem pathetic but it was so comforting, critical, non-judgmental and my reality at that time, that I must admit it. My heart was broken. I was kicked out of bars, cabs, friend's houses. I knowingly used men as a comfort. My promiscuity and alcoholic behavior became my identity, my numbing agent. I never want to feel that pain I felt with Joey and I would numb in every single way I could think of. Then I met Brian. Brian was spiritual and passionate. He was punk rock. He had style and flare and his wardrobe was flamboyant and sexy. He had tattoos and a handlebar mustache. he was unlike anyone I had dated. We dated for one and a half years. Within the first six months, I was sure I would marry him and have his babies. I received some of the best advice I've ever received was to wait 9 months until I have a baby with someone. It takes 9 months to make a baby and if I felt that way in 9 months...do it! 9 months came, and he was different. He called me names daily such as selfish, bitch, cunt, spiteful, bigot, racist, unaware... he was controlling and volatile. My friends hated him and I was drawn closer to him. We discussed having a family. We adopted a puppy together. I became more secluded and honestly I liked his controlling ways. I liked how he had a plan and I wanted the same things he envisioned. It was the crazy talk that ended it. It was the late nights drinking and fighting, having cops called for domestic abuse, him cursing me out in front of my friends and strangers, telling me he was a wolf and a God and the son of Thor. I was raised in the church, playing Mary on Christmas plays, singing in the church choir. He said over and over how my upbringing has made me a delusional non-open women. I never got his mentality. Towards my end with Brian, I met John. John was 45 and I was 29 by now. We also met at a bar. I liked him right away and he is the first and only man I have walked up to and hit on, telling him exactly what I wanted. After dating Brian, I had nothing to fear. We went for a smoke outside. He bought my friends drinks and danced with them on the dance floor. He ran after me while I walked home and we exchanged numbers. Two weeks later we went dancing. He was married and going through a divorce. Our relationship consisted of dancing, drinking, and sex. It was perfection for a moment in time. He was distinguished, smart, funny, rich, and sweet. I was his mistress. He is the only man I have never lied to. Our relationship had no agenda, time frame, or expectation. I still love him dearly. John knew I wanted kids which one night he said I should date someone new, which brings me to Chris. I went out with girlfriends for dinner and went to the bar by myself afterwards and in walked Chris. He sat down next to me and took me home that night. He was 32 and an artist. A talented one at that. We were on and off for months. I loved him madly but never told myself that, or him. I regularly felt like he was better than me. He was kind and generous. He is an artist through and through. He finds beauty in the most ugly of places and has an intact talent to disciphere and express his vision and his reality through art. I spent most of our relationship in "aww" of how he wore his heart of his sleeve. He loves women. He loved my best friend. He told me he wanted to keep me around so he could ditch me and hook up with her. I was crushed. He tried to make up for it. He told me he only had eyes for me, I was the one he wanted, he wanted to have kids with me. He told me everything a 31 year old single woman wants to hear. I ate it up...for a week. Then, something happened. A shape shift. Of course he loved me. Of course he wanted to have kids with me. Of course, he fucked up. I told him it was too soon to forget. I forgive him and myself knowing it would never work and pretending it would or knowing I never really wanted him. I was usually slightly uncomfortable around him and kept telling myself that that uncomfortable life was normal and expected. It was pushing me to be better, but the truth is, I wasn't ready to be better. I am now. I write this to release from my ghosts since Joey. I write this for all women who are in their early thirties, single, and feel like settling is what's going to happen. I didn't think I would end up here but the choices I have made have put me here. It is no one's fault or anyone's praise which put me here except my own. I spent the last five years of my life making an effort to be numb. These men are not bad, they are truly lovely and kind in their own rights. I believe they all loved me on a level that I was not willing to accept or reciprocate. That's what the last three had in common was that I knew they weren't right for me. I led them on. I became who they wanted. I can now see this. I loved them all but I never loved myself enough to let them close. I'm more tired thinking that I have to make something work The end of my relationship with Joe was soul crushing but I didn't realize it until lately. My choices have reflected it, however. I am ready for a new beginning. If gut wrenching heartache or a life time of happiness are the outcomes...bring it the hell on! It's one in the same and I'm finally ready again.